Originally Posted by
Zorak
That was my initial reaction too, but this is slightly different -- upon rereading it a second time, my understanding is
1. paid $100 for something from LH -- it sounds like this did NOT qualify for the $300 travel credit, probably because it had been exhausted for the year and hadn't been reset yet.
2. due to cancellation OP was due a $100 refund
3. LH dragged its heels, OP contacted Chase who reversed the original $100 charge
4. LH finally got around to issuing the refund
Somewhere between 2-4, the annual travel credit reset and became available again.
5. Chase noticed the refund and therefore reversed the reversal from (3)
This is different from the usual, "I bought something, got the travel credit, then returned the thing, so why didn't the credit get reversed" situation; RNE is observing is that the reversal of the reversal, qualified for the current year's travel credit.
The bottom line is, the previous poster still got his Travel Credit WITHOUT having to spend. His previous spend did not receive the credit was he already used the credit of that period.
My thought is, whenever Chase did some posting whether it is an actual travel charge or a reverse of the temporary credit issued from dispute, as long as it falls into the period you are still eligible to receive "some" travel credit, said posting regardless the nature of HOW the cause is or HOW the nature is, you still get the credit WITHOUT actually spending the requisite charge because, you receive the refund from the merchant!
That is why I say it is nothing weird and happened before, the actual outcome that hits the bottom line is what that matters, at least to me, and may be to many others. How the process that led to such, does not matter as I doubt anyone would set out to game such a thing when the CSR owners from Day One most likely would not do such, and the CSR owners from May 2017 would get their credits each membership year so there is nothing to be gamed.
The "gaming" was largely done during 2016, people who set out to game the system would be buying the fully refundable tickets or booking fully refundable prepaid hotels, and then cancel such. Chase, at least up to now, does NOT take back that already redeemed travel credit. This behavior has been mentioned and probably practiced, by many who only planed to keep the CSR for the first year when they were claiming 2x $300 travel credits. If you go back to 2016 threads you will see hints of these behaviors.
Therefore we have learned HOW Chase processes the travel credits. (and the fact it does not take back the credit, unlike AMEX Offer - at least up till now until new DPs surface.)
In reality that is no fundamental difference in the 2 cases we discussed here as that just shows us how Chase system works when it identifies the travel credit eligibility - as long as you still have "room" left on your current period, Chase would post the credit against the charge being posted, regardless how the charge is incurred - it does NOT go back in transaction history to match item for item!
I can tell you AMEX would try to match item for item on the AMEX Offer credit, though 50% of the time the match was done wrong, either in the amount or even matched to the wrong card (probably due to it uses SSN instead of card number, and the Primary / AU mix also complicated things, and confused AMEX system a lot!
But Chase system is very simple and basic.